Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Battle Report: Space Wolf versus Death Guard

The nefarious Dokclaw finished his new 40k table and invited me to his place for the christening. My passion for 40k is first and foremost fuelled by the modeling aspect of the game. Thus I was excited to see what Doclaw had produced, to try out the new board, and to see what the photos would be like with all our respective figurines. Furthermore, Dokclaw has been painting diligently so he had lots of new dudes to put on the table.

Having been tabled the day previous by another 5th/6th edition codex, I was a bit reticent to roll out the same list again. To really understand the weaknesses and strengths of a list however, it is necessary to try it out against a number of foes. So I changed nothing from my last game except to switch the force staff on the sorceror for a force axe and to give my terminators combi-plasmas. This also gave me the time to properly read about flying monstrous creatures and update my short-list of rules.

Before the game, we didn't decided on any specifications regarding choice of units so we were free to build our lists any way we wanted. I think Dokclaw got the memo about the fragility of vehicles and didn't take many in his list (2 razorbacks).

Long fangs (5) with four missile launchers
Long fangs (5) with four missile launchers

Deployment

Déploiement

I rolled Princeps of deceit as my warlord trait. It grants me the ability to redeploy one unit up to 3 d6" or three units up to d6" at the beginning of the game. This time I remembered I had this bonus ability but I didn't really need it. The problem with a lot of the warlord traits is that they are very situational. Thus, either the right situation never occurs, or if it does, I forget I have the power. I forget what my friend rolled. Then I traded in Nurgle's Rot and Doombolt for 2 powers in the back of the book and rolled Fiery Form and Dominate. We then rolled Big Guns Never Tire as our mission and Vanguard Strike for deployment which meant deploying 6" from a line drawn from the top corner to the opposing bottom corner. Once again like my last game, I got the initiative so I went first.

I placed my troops in a long line along the deployment edge. My Havocs took cover behind the Aegis defense lines, grabbing an objective in the bargain, and my plague marines were deployed to commandeer the bunkers (which are super nice by the way). The termies were deepstriking, the Chosen were outflanking, the demon prince was coming in from reserves (via a table edge we decided since it is still unclear how a flying demon prince deploys), and the demons were arriving as per the usual demonic deployment rules.

Unlike my game against the Necrons, this battle involved a lot of little skirmishes that didn't tend to favour either of us.

The demon dropLe largage de démon

I dropped a bunch of plague bearers behind his Longfangs to at least interrupt momentarily his missile launcher spam. This tactic worked better than I could have believed, even though I forgot about them until the third turn.

When they first dropped I ran them into cover. Dokclaw effectively ignored them until the third turn when they ran out and assaulted his Long fangs. The HQ kept missing, and my demons were shrugging off the blows that landed from the others.

My Havocs had one turn to enjoy themselves so they took out a razorback right away. Dokclaw did an absolutely awesome glowing smoke thingie with cotton and leds. He had been to Arena in May and had produced a whole bunch of cool tokens and doodads to let players know what was going on in the game. They make for fantastic and self-explanatory pictures.

The fun was over for my Havocs when two pods dropped in, one transporting a grey hunters squad and another carrying a Death star HQ with a terminator retinue. When I saw that I just wrote them off as already dead.

I did have to deal with the fact that there was a scoring troop in my deployment zone. I was willing to abandon the Havocs to their fate but I didn't want to hand Dokclaw another objective. So I sent in my Chosen packing four meltas and my greater demon. I had wanted to send the demon to help out with squashing the Longfangs but he was much more useful mashing the intruders. The Chosen got there first, firing off a volley of melta shots before they were charged. They didn't do much aside from distract the squad, but the demon on the other hand ripped through them like a knife through butter. I forgot how much fun it is squashing power armour with my monstrous creatures. I usually die before getting the chance.

One of my Havoc squads got a slight reprieve. The death star squashed the first squad but then bungled the charge, not quite making it to the second squad. They didn't do much with this moment of freedom however. It did give me enough time to move my Great Unclean One into position to help out when the rush did come.

It was an epic battle, made further so by the fact I suddenly realised my Great Unclean One has a Feel No Pain save on top of his 4+ invulnerable! That might have changed things somewhat against the Necrons. Now I know.

Anyways, the death star squashed the havocs right away but it took several rounds of back and forth before the Great Unclean One went down. I kept making my saves but the death star had a 3+ invulnerable which he kept making as well. I probably should have killed off the second terminator buddy but I was worried each round would be my last and i wanted the glory of an impressive kill. Overall, I was very impressed with the GUOs performance. It can really take punishment.

My plan for my sorceror was hardly ambitious. I figured he would seize the bunker and call it a day while he hoped the cover saves would protect him the missile launchers. As it turned out, he had a much more interesting time than that.

Dokclaw dropped in a second pod next to the bunker which gave him a target. In true Death Guard style, I didn't just send in the sorceror and his plague marine escort. My terminators came in by deepstrike and had a choice between assaulting the HQ on steroids or assaulting the squad stepping out of the pod. I opted to fire their combi-plasmas on the amped up HQ while moving them towards the pod. This meant that on the following turn they piled into the Grey Hunters with the Sorceror in tow. As if that wasn't enough, Stinky (my demon prince) came flying on board looking for targets, and he joined the asault as well.

Stinky flew off to take out the Longfangs still harrassing my guys. Unfortunately he was cursed by the Space wolf psycher and had to reroll invulnerable saves. This proved deadly when the Longfangs scored a lucky Overwatch shot with a missile launcher, removing his last wound.

Fortunately, the terminators had stuck around and quickly dispatched this new threat with the help of the remaining plague marine escort. Before they died, the Greyhunter champion issued a challenge to my sorceror. It was rather exciting but ended very quickly at the end of a power axe (they are much more useful than power staves!).

The Battle for the center objectiveLa bataille pour l'objectif central

The battle for the central objective was instigated by my placing said objective pretty much in the open. It was behind one little section of an Aegis defence line so there was very little cover to be had. The battle evolved slowly as the turns progressed. The intial step was when my plague marines tried to run to the bunker on the far edge of the table. They couldn't make it without exposing themselves to missile launcher fire for a turn or two, so I held them back in area terrain. Dokclaw profited from my reticence by running his grey hunters into the bunker.

This wasn't the end of the world since the bunker was still a good ten inches away from the objective. By holding the bunker, the grey hunters were only keeping themselves alive. I used the plague marines instead to harass the death star squad with plasma shots. Over the turns, I think they took out two or three of the terminator escort. In the back of my mind, I knew their real purpose was to make an endgame rush for that central objective.

Things got complicated when the two surviving Grey hunters from the pod drop came running to claim the objective. I sent my terminators after them and coincided this attack with a rush from the plague marines. Dokclaw sent in the Grey hunters from the bunker and it turned into a nasty ball of angry astartes.

To make a long story short, the terminators crushed the survivors of the pod, and my plagues marines sent the single survivor from the bunker stealing Grey Hunters running for his life after they butchered his mates. If I am remembering correctly, I just narrowly claimed the objective in what I think was the seventh turn.

Keeping score is no easy business in sixth edition. I suppose it will become second nature after a few more games but for now it will be a good idea to keep a tally on a notepad like Dokclaw did for our game. To summarize, I held two objectives for 3 points each, I had a unit in his deployment zone, and I got first blood with the Razorback kill, for a total of 8 points. Dokclaw held one objective for three points, had killed all my heavy support, had killed my sorceror, and had a unit in my deployment zone, for a total of 8 points as well. It was a tie!

What a game! I really enjoy tie games because it usually means there are a lot of twists and turns with numerous reprisals. One side is never sure they will win and so the players are tense and focused. So it was today.

Strategically, I think Dokclaw was more focused than I was. He went straight for the heavy support (who in this game were scoring), whereas I focused wholly on his troops just because they are such a fun and squishy target for all the power weapons, melta, and plasma my army was packing. I did keep my head reasonably focused on the objectives though, which is an improvement over my usual thrash and burn approach to gaming.

I made a few errors. Sending Stinky in to crush the pod contents wasn't a good idea. The terminators were more than enough to finish the job. Stinky would have been more useful mashing the Longfangs. As a flyer, he isn't too scared of being hit by conventional weaponry. Unfortunately, due to the delay of the pod fight, he had lost too many wounds. One lucky shot stopped his charge. Those Longfangs were a recurring problem throughout the fight. On top of taking out Stinky, they kept dropping wounds on my sorceror who didn't have FNP to shrug them off. They effectively had the whole game to fire with impunity. As I said, Stinky was probably the best response to this problem. We'll see in future games.

I was surprised how resilient the demons were in this battle. Their two saving throws aren't half bad. They barely do any damage, though. The same cannot be said for big guy. He is just over the top nasty, well worth his 165 points. If only I could get two! With the change to the charge range, units like footslogging terminators and my Great Unclean One have become much more effective. I used my terminators in three different combats! How cool is that?

As for my Plague marines, they are excellent troops with their T5 but they are still so expensive. When I'm not facing power weapons in an assault, they are almost unstoppable, but it is hard to field more than a handful. Dokclaw's missile launchers were much less effective against them than usual, which is why I think he left my plague marines alone.

It was another excellent day of wargaming. Not only was Dokclaw a genial host & a challenging opponent, but his new table rocks. In addition, the work he has put into his figures is awesome. I really like the new brickwork bases he made with putty. You can see yourself from the incredible photos. One thing I noticed was that the light grey of the table really works well as a background to emphasize the figures. I am considering repainting my board again in more matt but brighter colours. And I'm looking forward to our next game which should be an Apocalypse match!